Tag: Family

I’m experiencing deep emotional pain right now. I’m going to acknowledge that, let it be until it leaves, and also keep in mind that I’ve done my very best.

Self-awareness doesn’t mean that you’ll never make mistakes. It means that even if you did, you will pick up on it and respond in a way that best aligns with your highest self.

It also means that you walk away from things and people that take away from you.

Trust me when I say this — it doesn’t matter how long you know someone or if you share a blood relationship with that person.

What matters is how much you and them evolve as people, how you communicate and whether you’re truly there for them.

This year has taught me that no matter how much healing work of acceptance and forgiveness you do, some dynamics never change. You do the work for yourself; so that you can create a life and relationships that are supportive.

It doesn’t excuse their behaviour and all the nasty things they may have done to you, but it frees you from the suffering of it. It frees up time and energy for better things in life.

In the last two days, I’ve reached a completion with two relationships in my life. I am very peacefully convinced that I have tried my best and that I no longer need to keep anchoring the relationships.

People can only meet you as deeply as they can meet themselves. If one can’t handle the complexities of your being + experience, they probably can’t handle the complexities of their own.

I’ve learnt to let go of, with love, things and people that no longer serve me.

At first I used to think that my health, apart from taking away things that I loved, took away people I loved. Today, after a decade of dealing with the ups and downs of my health, I’ve realised one important thing: my health is a beautiful filter for all relationships in my life. My relationship with people as well as things. When it takes away, it keeps aside the best of the best.

I’ve lost people I thought I couldn’t live without and also gained people I least expected would show me so much love and understanding. The support and guidance that has shown up in my life in the last four years has been immensely helpful for me to make peace with where I’m at.

I don’t mean to say for a moment that those who are no longer in my life are bad people. But, they were incapable or unwilling to swim in the deep. They preferred the shallow waters. Not everyone’s realities are the same and some of us are more aware of this + willing and capable of accepting it when it comes to people we care about.

My health has also taught me another thing: the importance of healthy boundaries. Drawing boundaries with people is not the same as building walls between you and them. You get to decide who gets to visit the garden you’re growing, how long they stay and what they take with them.

If someone had told me these things years ago, I think I might just have suffered a little less. I would like to think I had to learn these lessons through personal experiences. Looking back, no matter how painful it was to let go of things, people and the idea of a certain kind of life, I would say it has been an eye-opening experience which has now aligned me with a life more supportive of who I am and my reality.

I’ve always believed in quality over quantity in most areas of my life. Today, the people I am surrounded with are those who listen, try to understand and also do their own research when it comes to having a loved one with a life-altering illness. They also trust my experience when I speak about it and we’ve learned to have a more open and honest communication.

Grateful to be back home after spending a day at the hospital. I had a random and severe episode of syncope two afternoon’s back but thankfully nothing life-threatening showed up. The cause remains unclear but from our understanding, it could’ve been anything from dehydration to my gastro symptoms to extreme fatigue.

Thank you to the kind souls who reached out. I feel so loved and care for. A much bigger thank you to those who’ve stood by me through the thick and thin.

Some of us are raised having to justify our anger. We are raised to think that emotion of anger is “bad” and that we are bad people for experiencing that feeling.

Anger is not inherently a negative emotion. It is an emotion that calls for acknowledgement + action. Perhaps what you do with it could be categorised as a negative or positive action.

We need to raise our kids to understand that feeling angry is as natural as feeling happy and emphasize fully experiencing anger and then responding accordingly. Not reacting. Responding.

Really asking, “what is my anger telling me?” instead of distracting the moment you experience the very first sign of anger.
We need to teach our kids to find productive ways of processing anger without feeling afraid of it or feeling guilty for having that emotion.

We need to teach them to sit with it.

Write and share it in a safe space.

Maybe go for a run.

Channel it into a creative project.

Anger and passion are two sides of the same coin. Suppressing one means suppressing the other and consequences of both aren’t healthy.

Growing up in a dysfunctional family, I’ve seen both extremes. One side acted out, the other preferred to suppress and I’ve personally seen how damaging damaging both can be. One can damage your relationship with others, the other can easily damage your relationship with yourself, which then ultimately affects the first.

I’m not advocating reacting in a way that’s hurtful or acting out because that’s giving in to anger and nor am I suggesting holding on to it till it crushes your insides.

We don’t want either.

We want to try to tap into our wisdom and awareness, knowing when to take some time out to ourselves to feel the anger, where to speak about it and most importantly, what to do with it.

Last few years of spending a lot of time alone, I got a chance to work on and let go of the trauma and pain from my past which needed to be looked at. Thankfully, I’ve healed from most of it but I still remember how that emotion has always caused me more pain than it needed to.

I didn’t know what to do with that anger because of what I saw around me as a kid — how was I supposed to experience and overcome anger if I either wasn’t allowed to speak about it OR was surrounded by angry people, yelling and screaming at one another? How was I, as a child, supposed to gauge what is right and what isn’t? So I naturally grew up confused around that emotion — feeling like utter shit about myself for even having that feeling. I held on to it until one day I figured it was eating me up from inside. It took me a while to find productive ways of dealing with my anger and it started with naming it. Being okay with it. Letting myself have that emotion without generating more drama around it.

Sometimes anger just wants to be heard. And I wish someone told me that 20 years ago.

These days I write about it until I can’t write anymore. I cry it out. I call my close friends and request them to be my sounding board. I take a bath. I go for a walk alone. I even speak with my spiritual guidance teacher. If I feel like it, I draw out my feelings and then tear out those papers. Sometimes I keep them to look back. Then I meditate. Take deep breaths throughout the day and sleep over it too. I give myself all the time and space I need to fully experience that emotion before I decide how I want to respond to the situation or the person who triggered the anger in me. At times this looks like having a word with them and at times, it looks like never going back.

Next time you experience anger,give yourself the full permission to feel it without any form of guilt. Remember, it’s both natural and okay to experience “negative” emotions. You’re don’t have to beat yourself up for feeling them. Instead, lean in to those emotions. Listen in.

Be kind with yourself. Find your safe space where you can feel your feelings without being judged and remain there for as long as needed.

I don’t see a reason why we need to entertain toxicity or things/people who trigger us in our space. I do believe in self-reflection, though, so I make sure to sit with my thoughts for a bit. three things I keep in mind are:

1. People are the way they are for their own reasons and their judgement or behaviour has nothing to do with you. More often than not, it’s a reflection of their own insecurities and sometimes they may not even be aware of it

2. It’s your responsibility to maintain your sanity. Do what needs to be done to protect it, whether that’s to say a clear no or a yes. Show up for yourself.

3. Do the self-reflection. Ask yourself what is triggering to you and why because that’ll give you some insight and show you where work needs to be done.

Wake up tomorrow, look around, say a word of thank you for the things you have. Take a deep breath, close your eyes and say thank you for people who are still in your life; for those who have showed up for you. Walk to your mirror and say thank you to the person you see. Make a promise to yourself that you won’t settle for any less than what you need. It doesn’t matter who says what. It doesn’t matter who “settles down” at what age, or achieves what when you know you’ve chosen a different path, one that is least followed, understood and accepted. Look inwards, for you know what is best for you. Look inwards, for you’re filled with love you’ve tired to find outside. Look inwards, for you’ve once given away too much love that you now owe to yourself. Look inwards first, always.

I’ve been practicing setting healthy boundaries for over three years now. Initially, it used to feel scary, the thought of setting boundaries even with your loved ones or those you once loved but over time, I realised that it is okay to feel terrible about it and yet want to draw a line between yourself and anyone else.

It is important to protect your space; both internally and externally. That fear, that terrible feeling which sometimes feels like guilt is usually temporary and when you do in fact start seeing some positive shifts and change from learning to set healthy boundaries, that temporary feeling does disappear. Soon, you experience a very light, freeing feeling. I know this for sure.

I found peace in knowing that I’m doing what I’m doing for my the sake of my well-being and it always seemed worth it.

Setting healthy boundaries in your close and distant relationships is an integral part of self-care. It does not mean that you don’t tend to others. It means that you learn to tend to yourself first. Shifting your focus and attention towards what or who really matter frees up space and energy which can definitely be directed towards other greater things. There were many times in my life when events and situations around me made me feel helpless, as if there was no form of separation between me and others. I found that I was running low on energy for myself and that it was affecting my entire being.

It took me years to learn to set healthy boundaries and say ‘no’, firmly and politely where necessary.

Sometimes I catch myself slipping off my practice as well but I’m quicker to find my space and bring myself to stand my ground. You are allowed to go to any extent to ensure that your peace, solitude and sanity are well taken care of.

If you ever forget how strong you are, pause for a moment and look back – look at all the times you fell and stood up, not just stronger but courageous enough to try over and over again. Look back at the times you could have shut yourself to love and pain, and built a wall around your heart, but you chose to remain soft and let light in anyway. Look at the times you showed up; for people and yourself. Your story makes only a part of you, and the lessons your learn and how you evolve, make up the rest of you. Ask yourself, “how has my story changed me for the better?” If ever you doubt your strength, your ability to love, your discernment and authenticity to walk your own path, look back… look back and see how far you’ve come. It’ll make it easier to continue moving ahead if you realise how unstoppable you’ve been up till now.

After more than two weeks of thinking through whether I wanted to or if I was even in the mood to host a mini Ganesh Chaturthi dinner, I finally figured I had to do it this time. I got a couple of messages from friends who were looking forward to it and I knew it wasn’t going to be like last year. This time round, everything was going to be different.

Because it is different.

Things change, times change.

What remained the same as last year was the feeling of love and joy, dressing up & being around a few people and knowing that no matter where life is heading, you’d always have some memories to look back upon and smile. To feel grateful for.

Ultimately, that’s really all I care about when it comes to festivals. If you’re like me, spiritual enough to respect that people get to have their own set of religious beliefs and, you’d agree that if any festival is celebrated with the people who love you and people you love, people who have been there for you and people you’ve been there for, and if you’re present in that moment, do a small ritual and feel immense gratitude, it is more than enough. You get to choose how you want to live your experience.

Amongst all the amazing photos captured that day, these three will always remind me that despite everything,

you have a choice.

To pick a family,

To dream freely,

To hope without fear,

To laugh without guilt,

To cry with your heart,

To love with your mind,

To sing your very own song,

To live with what you have and make the best out of it.

P.S. if you’re wondering what’s happening up there… you know, we were just trying to dance on “raat ke dhaaii baje” and “pinga” for very obvious reasons. Also, did you notice my freakishly bendy fingers?